UTF-16 is a character encoding system that allows computers to represent and manipulate text from various languages. It uses 16 bits (or 2 bytes) for most common characters, which means it can handle a wide range of symbols, letters, and emojis. This makes it particularly useful for applications that need to support multiple languages, such as websites and software. One of the key features of UTF-16 is its ability to represent over a million different characters by using a combination of single and double 16-bit units. This flexibility ensures that even rare or complex characters can be displayed correctly, making UTF-16 a popular choice for global communication and data exchange.